I get more excited about significant sporting moments.
I'm a man of very little talent and interests, so when something exciting happens in my dull life, I make a point of telling people. Actually, I often share them with the same person: my best friend Chris (who I mentioned earlier this week in my column about nicknames).
Two of the best gold medals won by Australians at Olympic Games this century, I have witnessed.
I still remember, like it was yesterday, getting up at 2 am in the morning to watch Anna Meares win her cycling gold medal at the 2004 Athens Games.
Chris was with me then; he was staying over before we played junior footy the next day.
I remember Phil Liggett saying "Anna Meares, you are a champion".
Writing this just sent a tingle up my spine.
I only had to wait four years to watch another great moment, when diver Matthew Mitcham won gold at Beijing.
What made his medal so thrilling was, it was the last event of the day. Channel 7 had packed up for the night and nobody thought he would hit that last dive.
Although there was still another diver to go after Mitcham perfectly cut through the water, I remember saying ``he's won it''.
Recently I had another moment that is likely to be etched into my brain — but for most people it was completely insignificant.
Last weekend, the racehorse Alligator Blood had what can only be described as the second-greatest win in racing history. The best was Chautauqua winning the Lightning Stakes in 2016.
Forget everything you know about racing, this win by Alligator Blood was one of the best moments of my life.
He was stride for stride at the 400 m with Catalyst. There were at least three occasions I thought Alligator Blood was going to lose. But no, he held firm, dug deep, and won.
I was at home watching it on my phone, slapping my backside with the rolled up Herald Sun pretending to whip him home (a mental picture, no doubt, also now seared on the brain of the sub-editor of this column).
I believe that action of mock whipping played a spiritual part in that win.
I've re-watched Alligator Blood's brilliant victory at least 30 times during the past week.
As Matthew Hill said, "Bring on the Guineas!”
Those moments in sport just happen. You can't write the script for it.
Does anyone really care or remember anything from Richmond's 2019 grand final win? Of course not, it was boring. I bet even the Tigers’ supporters are struggling to remember it.
The other day I was re-watching the classic boxing bout between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, and thought about what it would have been like to actually be there to see a man bite another man's ear off.
Although boxing is a violent sport, it's still contested in a controlled environment so there's at least some element of safety ... although not in that particular case. Millions of people around the world were glued to their TVs watching 97 kg of muscle bleeding and jumping around in pain.
It was a moment of unexpected sporting history and, no doubt, there people who, to this day, tell the story of watching Iron Mike bite the Real Deal not once, but twice.
Today is another day of group racing and I'm not confident of victory, but one can only hope to witness another Alligator Blood-like performance. And if I do, you can be sure I'll be dining off it for some time.
